A simulation modelling approach to improve the OEE of a bottling line

This dissertation presents a simulation approach to improve the efficiency performance, in terms of OEE, of an automated bottling line. A simulation model of the system is created by means of the software AnyLogic; it is used to solve the case. The problems faced are a sequencing problem related to the order the formats of bottles are processed and the buffer sizing problem. Either theoretical aspects on OEE, job sequencing and simulation and practical aspects are presented

Four decades of research on the open-shop scheduling problem to minimize the makespan

One of the basic scheduling problems, the open-shop scheduling problem has a broad range of applications across different sectors. The problem concerns scheduling a set of jobs, each of which has a set of operations, on a set of different machines. Each machine can process at most one operation at a time and the job processing order on the machines is immaterial, i.e., it has no implication for the scheduling outcome. The aim is to determine a schedule, i.e., the completion times of the operations processed on the machines, such that a performance criterion is optimized. While research on the problem dates back to the 1970s, there have been reviving interests in the computational complexity of variants of the problem and solution methodologies in the past few years. Aiming to provide a complete road map for future research on the open-shop scheduling problem, we present an up-to-date and comprehensive review of studies on the problem that focuses on minimizing the makespan, and discuss potential research opportunities

The Long-Wave Debate; Selected Papers from an IIASA International Meeting, Weimar, GDR, June 10-14, 1985

For over a century, some economists have pointed out that upswings and down turns in economic activity (along with some key economic variables) seem to follow a surprisingly regular pattern -- a pattern sometimes labeled simply "Kondratieff long waves" in honor of the Russian economist who first rigorously described some of the phenomena leading to these changes. What might to be causes and consequences of these long-term fluctuations? What is the relationship between these so-called long waves and other structural changes, technical revolutions, financial and monetary variables? Finally, if the mechanisms of long waves can be understood, will it be possible to avoid the recurrent recessions in economic development that are as painful for the less developed countries as for the developed ones -- be they socialist or capitalist in orientation? By invitation, an international panel of distinguished scholars met in Weimar, GDR, to discuss these fascinating questions about the existence and nature of long waves. This conference was organized and sponsored jointly by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria and the Institute of Theory, History and Organization of Science of the GDR Academy of Sciences, Berlin. A select group of 30 contributions comprise THE LONG-WAVE DEBATE, which thus represents the state of the art in the theory and empirical observation of long-term economic cycles